


I Hate to Meet Her, Watson

by gardnerhill



Series: Twisted [2]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, M/M, Opium, Prompt Fic, Story: The Man With the Twisted Lip, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:13:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4295487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holmes’ POV of my rewrite of “The Man With the Twisted Lip.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Hate to Meet Her, Watson

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2015 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #7, _Unwanted Attention_ _. Whether it's a client gone stalkerish or a secret admirer who won't take a hint, one of the characters must cope with unwanted advances. How he/she deals with it and what happens is up to you._ This story is a POV-change version of [this story of mine](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2706311) but can be read on its own, and is not explicit.

There are times when it is damnably inconvenient to be an invert. The usual, larger reasons apply, of course – I am unable to wear a ring that proudly proclaims my status, I cannot be joined to my dear one in a church, nor can we be treated with the deference given a married couple by a country for which he has fought and been wounded and which I defend from the wickedness and injustice of crime. But other, smaller barbs wound as well; I cannot escort my beloved on my arm at a social gathering, nor take him onto a dance floor to show all present who is the master at this craft, nor help him into a carriage not out of necessity but out of possession and affection.  
  
And then there are clients like Mrs. St. Clair.  
  
The woman was the very soul of respectability and propriety as she greeted me in the sitting room where Billy had led her in, exhibiting all proper courtesy and deference. Yet even as she laid out the particulars of her adventure in London on Monday, her tea untouched, I sensed that something was amiss. This was no woman exhibiting a passionate affection for her husband, nor one distraught by dread. Rather, the signs were there, but they were overshadowed by other portends – her eyes that lingered on my shoulders and hands the few times they left my face (and displaying a look one does not associate with a worried wife), her accelerated breathing, the softer and breathier tone of her voice as the interview progressed. Her behaviour was a complete puzzlement to me – until I imagined how I would fill with rage were she to turn such attentions to Watson, and then I understood what she was doing.  
  
Ordinarily I would not have considered going out on an extended case without my Boswell, and Watson is invaluable in such matters that involve the fair sex – his ability to read women’s body language and other unspoken cues is far superior to mine, and he could have warned me or even have deflected the lady’s attentions to himself with his dashing good looks and chivalrous manner that would have easily eclipsed my own set of geometric angles masquerading as a face. However, my lovely man was away in the country attending to an old friend’s summertime ailment and would not be back in London for some days. Further, the woman’s case was a legitimate grievance and there were points about it that had caught my attention.  
  
The case itself seemed sadly cut-and-dried: discern the reason for respectable city-worker Neville St. Clair’s being seen in a vile Limehouse opium den moments before his disappearance, and determine the cause and culprit behind said disappearance (and very likely death). My own discomfort at Mrs. St. Clair’s attention was irrelevant. This was not a case which I could solve from my armchair; I would need firstly to see the man’s home and find what clues might be hiding there and secondly to infiltrate the Bar of Gold, observe the proprietor and his lackeys, and report on my success (or lack thereof) to the distraught wife. I already suspected that the opium den would be the least unpleasant part of this case.  
  
I joined Mrs. St. Clair in the dog-cart she had hired and we set out for Lee within the hour. I was sure that I would only require a few days’ observation and detection to find the truth of what promised to be an unhappy conclusion. I examined The Cedars, its grounds and the staff; all spoke of a respectable upper-middle class City man. Money was not the source of any problems; had debt been an issue, the stable-lad and other servants would be grumbling about delayed or scanty wages.  
  
I had another problem, however. During our drive to Lee, Mrs. St. Clair continued to look at me in a manner that ought to be partially-concealed by a debutante’s fan at a cotillion. I was grateful that the cart seat was wide enough to accommodate us both with plenty of room between, and that a forward-facing driver sat between us. But by the time I had edged away from the middle for the third time in order to maintain that space between us, I cursed my curiosity that drove me to take the case. Bitterly I reflected that her eyes might have been turned aside, had I only been able conspicuously to display a wedding ring gleaming on the hands that enthralled her so. She had come to me, and so was aware of my fame and reputation: Sherlock Holmes, eccentric and confirmed bachelor, never seen in the company of any woman. To dissuade her by any protest of misanthropy or shyness, lack of social skills or nerve, would only encourage her to take me as a challenge. But to tell the truth would be fatal, both for myself and for my _époux de le coeur_ (even if I swore that I alone bore the mark of Sodom on my brow, suspicion would instantly fall upon my long-time associate as well). If I had not seen the change in her manner toward me after she had met me, I would have entertained the possibility that she had arranged to have her husband murdered solely to secure my services and bring me into her orbit.  
  
After my inspection of The Cedars, I feigned the need to retreat to utter privacy where I could begin to apply my disguise as a dissipated opium-eater to search for the woman’s lawfully-wed spouse. Mrs. St. Clair reminded me unnecessarily that the room she’d given me was a double-bedded one.  
  
A sleepless night lends _veritas_ to one’s persona as a drug addict. So does fast – I all but fled to the stable at the gleam in her eyes (and the frilliness of her pink bed-gown) as she told me that breakfast was ready in the private nook normally occupied only by the happy couple. Taking the dog-cart, I dashed from the lovely homes of the bourgeoisie, yearning for the Limehouse alleys and docks.  
  
I then spent a week in an opium den, trying to keep my wits about me amid the foul-sweet smoke and surrounded by many who’d pay for the privilege of slitting Sherlock Holmes’ throat, whilst attempting to deduce the Lascar’s role in this domestic tragedy and the whereabouts of the man responsible for the disappearance of Neville St. Clair – and atop everything else, dread building like a mountainside of snow at the thought of Mrs. St. Clair waiting for my report.  
  
Four days into my work, I risked my disguise and my life to send a telegram to Baker Street. AT BAR OF GOLD COME AT ONCE SH. Watson would surely be home by now, and my nervous anticipation of Mrs. St. Clair mixed with my dread at what must surely be the ending of this business. I needed his expertise with women, his sure hand with distraught clients, and his moral support.  
  
(I laughed out loud when I read Watson's account of our case afterward – especially the whole-cloth fabrication of Isa Whitney which led to an unbelievably coincidental reunion in the Bar of Gold. “Because a happily-married man does not leave hearth and wife at bed-time to hare off to an opium den at his bachelor friend’s enigmatic behest, Holmes, that’s why,” he had responded tartly in response to my laughter.)  
  
That beloved baritone softly calling for an imaginary friend was the first lightening of my heart in a week. As Watson passed me – his eye-flicker letting me know that he had recognised me – I muttered a low “Outside, five minutes,” without looking away from my brazier as if lost in smoke-dreams. I settled my account for my lodgings with the Lascar and soon was out in the foul-smelling dock air laughing beside the best man in London. He too had hungered for me – that also I read in his eyes – but as I filled him in on the case during our journey to Lee I saw the change in his demeanour as the case absorbed his thoughts to the detriment of baser urges (this did not prevent me from mourning the hand that left my knee to retake the reins).  
  
How I blessed my instincts for sending for my friend, when both of us saw Mrs. St. Clair silhouetted in the lamp-lit doorway of The Cedars wearing less, and more feminine attire, than I had seen her wear before – a frilly confection in muslin and chiffon. She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half-raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question. Her face was all alight as she looked at me, as one starving regards a banquet.  
  
Then Watson moved away from behind me, enough for the door-light to fall upon him, and Mrs. St. Clair’s whole body sank in on itself as she gave a groan. “Well?” she cried, despair in her face. “Well?”  
  
I should not have taken as much malicious pleasure in seeing her thwarted as I did. No doubt it was partially engendered by resentment that I would give my right arm for the legitimacy of a union that she, a legally-married woman, was willing to toss aside for the attentions of a stranger with un-beringed hands. However, I am above all other things a professional, and with a major impediment deflected I once again turned my thoughts toward the solution of Neville St. Clair’s disappearance. With little ado I whisked myself and Watson into that doubly-damned double-bedded room of hers for the rest of the night. Watson had observed and correctly deduced her behavior towards me, and his presence was a great comfort that long sleepless night.  
  
The solution to the case Watson's readers already know. (Precisely _how_ I solved the problem – I did truthfully tell Inspector Bradstreet that it had involved five pillows and a bit of shag – is not fit reading material for mixed company.)

When we left the Cedars – longing for sleep, eager for breakfast, pleased at our reunion – I had every hope that Mrs. St. Clair would soon be far too occupied with learning the truth behind the man she married at the same time that they faced the loss of the income that had provided their comfortable lifestyle. Human nature is a highly predictable thing; I knew that before a week had passed my role in this uncovered deception and descent would transform her attraction to me into resentment if not outright loathing. I was far too tired to throw back my head and laugh, but I chuckled, and may have leaned a little closer to my dear man even as I coaxed the mare to go a little faster as she took us home.


End file.
